With Deepawali around the corner, a whole lot of sweets are getting prepared at home. Here is a very simple and yummy sweet. The UKKARAI also called (paruppu puttu) is a traditional sweet, which has an integral place in festival cooking. It is a protein rich dish prepared with lentils. Since it is steam cooked it is an appropriate sweet dish to go with breakfast.
Ingredients
Bengal gram dal – ½ cup
Green gram dal – ½ cup
Powdered jaggery – 1 cup
Cardamom – 2
Ghee – 1 tbsp
Cashew nuts – a few
Raisins - a few.
Method
1. Dry roast the dals together till they turn red and give out a pleasant aroma.2. Wash and soak the roasted dals for 45 minutes.
3. Drain and grind the soaked dals into a coarse paste sprinkling a little water if necessary.
4. Steam the paste in a pressure cooker for 10 minutes and cool.5. Break the steamed lump into pieces.
6. Heat ghee in a pan and roast the cashew nuts and raisins.
7. Add the lentil pieces and cook them on low fire until they crumble into a fine sand like texture, stirring now and then with a spatula.
8. In a separate pan, dissolve jaggery in one cup of water and strain.9. Heat the jaggery water in another pan until it starts foaming to get a one string consistency.
10. Pour the jaggery syrup into the prepared dal and blend well.11. If the UKKARAI becomes soggy you can put it on low flame and stir until you get the required texture.
12. Mix in powdered cardamom.
Relish it either hot or cold.
